Hyalite Ice: Treasure Hunter

Matt, Sam and I had big plans for a Horsetail Falls redemption climb but the damn road was impassable. We had to park at the Pallisade Falls TH, about 2 miles from the Emerald Lake TH. Horsetail is already an hour + walk so we changed gears. I thought Treasure Hunter might be a good consolation but little did I/we know how little snow it takes to blanket the first two pitches of the climb! We burrowed through belly deep snow just to get to pitch 1 which, to our dismay, was pretty much totally covered. I lead the pitch by trudging through the deep snow which had insulated the ice and melted it; it was running water on rock for most of it. Pitch 2 is only WI2 so we unroped and solo'd through it. The third pitch (the money pitch) is a couple hundred yards up the mountain and I opted out of the snow slog to get to it. Nobody put up much of a fight so we walked back to the base of P1 and all of us solo'd it just for fun. We got back to my truck just in time to watch the 'Hyalite Rodeo.' The 'Hyalite Rodeo' is a term used to describe all the gumby drivers that end up in the ditch. It gets particularly bad when there is a bunch of snow. We were the second vehicle up the road with out any issue getting to Pallisade Falls but we only made it 10' up the Emerald Lake road before I got stuck and we backtracked to the parking lot and decided to walk. I knew (and was making bets with everyone) that people were going to be stuck on the way out and we should allow some time to help get them out. It was pretty funny to watch and impeccable timing on our part. We started driving out and quickly came upon the first stuck vehicle which, by the time I got out my shovel and offered assistance, became unstuck. So the car train moved a little further down the road to the next stuck vehicle which they got unstuck by the time I got the shovel out. The car train continued to move slowly out, plucking car after car out of the ditch. There must have been at least ten cars driving out/backing out by the time we got to the main fork road. We never actually had to shovel or tow! I wanted to let everyone know that there was a Subaru Outback at the TH but decided that would be pouring salt on the wound so I just kept my mouth shut.

P1 60M before we climbed it.

P1 after we wallowed up it.